


Trust and Love and Other Things

by arrows (orphan_account)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (2012), Young Avengers
Genre: (Kiiind of?), Angst, Anything Else I Put Will Be A Spoiler, Deathfic, Depression, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Ninja, Oh and Also, So I'll Leave it at That, Wow Actual Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/arrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Après moi le deluge, goes the quote. After me comes the flood. And it was true, in a way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust and Love and Other Things

**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently reading House on Mango Street (great book, if you haven't read it); so I modeled parts of this after the style in that. Particularly the dialogue. I hope I wrote what Kate goes through correctly, I did some research but it's never happened to me. I tried, though.
> 
>  
> 
> There's some more notes that I'd like to say but to post them up here would be major spoilers, so enjoy and look for those at the end!

I trust you, she says and lets him catch her when she falls.  
I'm happy here, she says and doesn't leave, no matter how many times her treacherous brain has thought of doing so.  
Lets go home, she says, even though he is her home more than their apartment - because it is theirs, not just his anymore - could ever be.  
I love you, she means. I love you, he hears, and always replies with I love you too, and she smiles and presses her lips against his.

Après moi le deluge, goes the quote. After me comes the flood. And it was true in a sense.  
When Clint dies it rains for days and days without end. Makes it all the more painful, really; just reminds Kate of the time everything had flooded and the world was water and they were apart.  
And again. Floods, like a hurricane, the rush of water, basements soaked to the bone.   
But he isn't there. He isn't even just a few hours away, a phone call from her.   
She knows the stages of grief inside and out from when Cassie died, got a list from her therapist and checked them off one by one until she was (mostly, kind of) okay. 

Denial. Oh, she denies it alright. He can't be dead. Hawkeyes just don't die. It was an unspoken rule between them: we'll always be okay, as long as there's the two of us, we can survive anything. And they did okay, they really did. Until they didn't.  
Thoughts rush over her every second of the day and denial only lasts about twenty-four hours.

Anger. Kate is strong. Kate is determined and emotional and sarcastic, all at once in an impossible mixture. But she isn't indestructible, nor is she a brick wall without emotion.  
She does the same thing she did when Cassie died. She screams; standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at Lucky. Why did he have to leave? she asks him, why did he leave me? Why couldn't a mattress truck come to break his fall like in the movies. Why couldn't Clint be James Bond, why couldn't he get out of anything unscathed, why did he leave.  
The dog looks down as if it's his fault he wasn't born with human speech capabilities, his fault he can't answer the whys. He walks away. Kate collapses on the floor and cries a while, for the first time since she found out.

(She realizes later that she went through bargaining here too. Two checks in her mental list, then. Two to go.)

The funeral comes after the floods end, almost a week later. Closed casket; apparently he was too injured to be shown. Well, falling off one of the tallest buildings in the city would do that, she supposed. That's what she heard happen, at least. She wasn't there, the rest of the Avengers were though. Aliens had attacked (again). 

Kate stares numbly from the back of the room as the Avengers give speeches, then she's being pushed to the front of the room to give her own.

Clint Barton, she says. Clint was. He was. Was. She stutters and stops a thousand times, had only loosely planned for this, before she gives up and restarts all together. Clint Barton is a sarcastic asshole. He named a dog Lucky unironically, after it almost got him killed. He almost died a thousand, a billion and one times and came out of it alive. He was the normal one, as normal as superheroes get: no powers, no abilities, just a fucked up past and some serious skills with a bow.

He ate pizza in front of the TV and watched Mean Girls with me, and he pretended he didn't want to but really he liked that movie even more than I did, she says. He could kiss like hell and picked me up and twirled me around after we won a fight. He could walk in heels better than I can. He could be a real jerk too; he tried to run away from things so many times I lost track. But every time he came back and flashed that little grin that's trying too hard to be brave but just barely hides a shy little boy, well, who wouldn't forgive him?

Clint was great. I trust him, I'm happy with him, he is my home. She talks of him in the present tense and the past, like she isn't sure yet if he's gone or not.

And I love him, she whispers as she goes back to her seat. And her eyes are blurring with the tears she didn't want to show in front of everyone, but they're already streaming down her face and she wonders how long they've been there without her noticing.

Billy walks to her quickly, wrapping an arm around her and leading her into the fresh air that still smells a little like the rain of the past week. Kate thanks him, smiles sadly and says he's a great friend and she just needs some time alone. He nods, reluctance on his face and his posture and how he hesitates to pull himself away from her. But it doesn't matter, because she's already walking away.

She goes back to his apartment and there she starts the fourth stage. Depression. She remembers the weeks that follow as a cloud. Pressing down on her from every side, clouding her thoughts, and there are days she doesn't know if she gets out of bed or not and doesn't especially care. She thinks a neighbor has started to feed Lucky, she hears the door open and close and every time she sits up fast thinking it might be Clint and it hits her again.

(It will never be Clint, she reminds herself. Not again.)

She doesn't know why she stays there, the sheets no longer smell like him but she wanders around in his purple t-shirts and it feels almost (not even near close enough) like he's there.

Kate sleeps for what seems like weeks straight and she's still tired. Missed calls blink on her phone whenever she bothers to turn it on, Billy and Teddy and Tommy and Eli and even Noh-Varr and America. Her team, she remembers through the fog.

She turns her phone off again with quick, one word, I'm fine texts in reply and goes on patrol. Well, someone's gotta keep the Bros of the world at bay with Clint gone.

She dons her purple gear and grabs her bow, Clint's bow, and takes a few minutes to stop her hands shaking. She's strong enough to tell herself no, you are not allowed to be weak anymore. Get ahold of yourself, Katie-Kate, get your life back together.

She passes the cemetery Clint's bones rest in and breaks down in the middle of the sidewalk. It's night and there aren't many people around to see her, but it wouldn't matter. She didn't care.

she hears footsteps after a few minutes and they stop right behind her. She waits but they don't walk away and she whirls around with a glare that seems less menacing with her red eyes and wet cheeks.

No. No no no no NO. This isn't supposed to happen, she says out loud without realizing it. She was finally getting better, she was ALMOST okay. And she told her body to stay still, to not fling herself into the man's arms, and it listened for once, thank God.

The familiar black ninja outfit with yellow highlights, exactly the same height and weight she'd been imagining for weeks, months.

Impossible.

You're right, he says, with his voice rougher than she remembers and she thinks he might be crying too if the way his words shake are any indication. But hey, impossible has never stopped us, right Hawkeye?

Right, Hawkeye, he repeats when there's no answer.

Kate runs. Leaves the bow and quiver on the ground and flees, as fast as possible, and she feels his eyes on her back but there are no footsteps following her. (She can't decide if that's a good thing or not.)

Kate flees and feels like she's starting the stages all over. Denial. He can't exist.

He's come back from the dead before, a small part of her brain says. But she goes back to his apartment and all is silent. She convinces herself after a few days of talking to Lucky and not getting a reply that she made it all up. He couldn't be back. Figment of her imagination. Must be.

And then the door opens and she hears four knocks on the wall. Two fast, one slow and one loud bang against the flat surface. She hides deeper under the purple sheets she's started to think of as her own, not allowing herself to even breathe.

She hears him stumble to the couch and hears the creak of the springs as he falls onto it and the house goes silent again.

She was just starting to accept that he was gone, dammit, why did he have to come back now? (Yet another why that cannot be answered.)

She wakes up the next morning and rubs her eyes, walking out to the main area to get some coffee and. Oh. She'd almost (not even near close enough) forgotten about the footsteps and the knocking and it was THEIR knock, theirs, and it wasn't fair.

She sinks down the wall and she's not sure how long she sits there without moving, but there's suddenly movement from the couch and she gets up, bracing her hand against the wall.

Hey Katie-Kate, miss me? he asks with that little smirk she lives for and she ins at him, tackling him onto the couch and pressing as close as possible for fear that he'll disappear again.

I thought you were dead. There was a funeral, I gave a speech, she tells him, the words pour out of her all at once like tears. Clint. Clint Clint Clint. She repeats his name until it fits in her mouth again, until it is no longer the word she cries out after a nightmare. I'm sorry, he says, and holds her tightly against his body. I'm so sorry.

Does anyone else know, she asks. Not yet, he replies. I'm sorry. I had to do it. They got Grills, you know. They woulda gotten you, or the kids upstairs, or anyone if I didn't leave. I didn't want to. But I couldn't bear anyone else I love being hurt, y'know? So I took them down. By myself. And I'm sorry it took so long. But I'm. I'm back. And I'm staying, if you'll let me. (If you can forgive me, she knows he means.) 

She forgave him a long time ago. And she tells him with a desperate kiss, pressing her hands in his hair and letting water run down her cheeks as they both pretend it isn't there.

I trust you, she whispers, I am happy and this is home. And I love you, she adds, quieter, almost silent. He doesn't have to reply, just buries his face in her shoulder and thanks whatever deities are out there that he is back home. 

After me comes the flood, après moi le deluge, it's true here too. After Clint comes back there is another kind of flood. A flood of moments and vignettes and happiness, a flood of coffee and kisses and movies and relaxing.

With this, Kate learns that there are two kinds of floods: the kind that rips your world apart and the kind that pushes it back together. She much prefers the second.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Clint comes back as Ronin because, well, when he "died" and came back the first time he did, so I have a headcanon where that becomes a trend every time he has to fake his death.
> 
> I apologize for the feels, except I'm not really all that sorry.
> 
> The quote is an actual quote, made by Kind Louis XV of France. I first heard of it from the Regina Spektor song Après Moi, and that's where I got the translation from. The internet says that it's correct, but please let me know if it isn't.
> 
> Anyways, please comment if you liked it!


End file.
